by injections do you mean IVs? I thought that blood serum level is not a good indicator of what is in the body? How much lower is it? Is it significant? Have you possibly taken magnesium out of your intake by some other means (diet?)?

Not sure if you are abnormal, but perhaps the sensitivy of the test is not good (can they reproduce their results in a consitent manner)?

I don't think blood levels of magnesium is a good indicator, so don't go by those. The best way to increase magnesium in the body is by injections, but it looks like you are doing those. Consider adding taurine as it helps. Also, you can try magnesium cream as well as nebulizing magnesium

Ottiebow, serum magnesium levels are notoriously irreflective of actual intracellular magnesium levels unless the values are close to or over the edges of the reference. The reasons for this are multiple, but the primary one is that the heart requires the magnesium level in serum to be within a fairly tight band or it will not function properly. Evolution has given this system priority over the others since heart failure self selects organisms out of the gene pool.

If you are magnesium deficient, and there is about a 90% off the cuff chance in this country that you are, then repletion of magnesium is essential and time consuming. It's depletion also took some time so please be patient, the results are worthwhile. If you absolutely need to know the true value of your intracellular magnesium status, then the Exatest is the way to go...more info at that name dot com (no connection with me). Since 99% of magnesium is intracellular, it is the gold standard for your magnesium status. You can measure progress along this route.

If you're like me and the prisoner of an HMO that doesn't offer even the most basic tests, just assume you're deficient and begin repleting to clinical effect...and keep on. Unless you have end stage kidney failure, your kidneys, via the loop of Henle, can excrete excess magnesium faster than you can get it except through a fast running high dose drip IV.

Now to your point: If you wish to increase your body's ability to hold onto magnesium, then increase your boron intake. Adequate boron will increase magnesium retention by around 33%. This is the reason country vets include it in Cal/Mag injections for livestock. They don't have time to keep driving 100 miles because Bessie is down again for not retaining her minerals. They include borogluconate in the injection; but you can get therapeutic amounts MUCH cheaper by using plain borax. That's right, I said borax. Plain off the shelf, 20 Mule Team Borax. The less than a dollar a pound stuff. It's pure sodium tetraborate decahydrate - Na2B4O7 + 10 H20.

Sodium tetraborate decahydrate (borax) is about 11% boron by weight...the rest is a trivial amount of sodium and mostly oxygen and water. It is safer than table salt per long history and much study. This is easily checked via search. The old timers had an arthritis remedy whereby they would stick a wet finger into plain borax up to the first knuckle and then lick that off. It tastes like sweet baking soda btw...probably because of all that oxygen. Anyway that supposedly kept arthritis at bay. A little checking and some measuring will produce the following: Boron intake levels are inversely correlated with arthritis rates...that is, where people get adequate boron from foods, water, or other sources, they have correspondingly less arthritis. Why is this? Because boron increases magnesium retention and the magnesium keeps calcium in an ionized state and in solution...it also prevents it from entering cells and solidifying. Magnesium dissolves solid calcifications so it also begins to reverse the arthritic disease state biochemically. Boron has a number of other positive effects that would lengthen this already long response, but I assure you, you will appreciate them...as will a significant other...and vice versa.

There are easier ways to get the boron from borax than licking one's finger...I got tired of that after about 2 days. Some accurate measuring showed me that the finger dip method was giving me an average of about .15 - .2 grams of whole borax per dip...or about 17 - 22 mgs of elemental boron...right on the high end of dietary recommendations for my size (200lbs - 91kgs). Apparently the old timers were pretty sharp...think about it...smaller people have smaller fingers, bigger ones, etc...if they dipped to the second joint it was more than needed...just to the fingernail, less. But I digress. So the trick is to get around 0.1g of borax (11mg boron) per hundred pounds. I just remeasured for this post and borax is exactly 4 grams per teaspoon (4.01 +/-). Personally I just put an eighth of a teaspoon in a gallon of magnesium bicarbonate* drinking water and call it good. It makes the water taste 'fresher' in my opinion. I average drinking about a half gallon a day, so it averages out a little on the high side.

Another critical co-factor is Vitamin B6...preferably the P-5-P version that is already immediately bioavailable, since the majority of folks on this site are almost certainly poor methylators to one extent or another. In fact, all the B vitamins should be considered essential...actually they are...imagine a bucket brigade with a mix of strong men and toddlers or absentees. The weak links will need shoring up if you're serious about putting out the fire.

Once you've helped shut the flood gates a bit with the boron and B vitamins, the repletion will begin to have much more effect. Without getting into how much you are injecting and how often, let me give you some tips on other very effective ways to replete magnesium on a more day-to-day basis. These will help you to quickly undo a Mg deficit.

*Oral: The absolute best way I have found to replete orally is via magnesium bicarbonate water. You have to make it by mixing a measuring capful of plain Milk of Magnesia (45ml) into a liter of cold carbonated water (seltzer water), then diluting the reaction into 3 gals of plain water, but it is very easy to do and extremely effective. There are plenty of how to recipes online (search 'magnesium bicarbonate water') so I will spare the step-by-step and share some costs and results. Using plain WM Equate MoM, and generic seltzer it costs me about $0.28/gal to make and is worth a million dollars.

Magnesium bicarbonate water got me off of narcotics..powerful narcotics..quickly. I was actually just trying to find a way to get magnesium into the mitochondria and read where this is the mitos preferred molecule, the incredible pain relief was just a Godsend after 3 decades of torment. It also saved my sister's career and she is now a Mg bicarb evangelist...I get cell calls from people thanking me for turning them on to this...the recipe is spreading through my old job of 3,200 cops...so please forgive our enthusiasm, but it's hard to watch lives being changed and not get excited. It helped give us back a large chunk of our lives. Mg bicarb water has about 125mg of Mg per liter and is completely ionized and dissolved in the water. This will give about a 50% absorption rate or about 12x the absorption from plain Mg oxide tablets. I can say the pain relief came as much from the bicarb as the Mg. Increasing the amount of bicarb with sodium and/or potassium bicarb enhances that effect, just not as much without the Mg.

Transdermally: I use two types and two methods. Mg Sulfate first, this is plain old Epsom Salts. The cheapest places to get it are WM, Costco, and Big Lots...if they're charging much more than $.50/lb it's a rip. The first method is the familiar soak. In the tub use about a pound/15 gallons of water as warm as tolerable...so an average tub might be 2 lbs worth. A buck. The Brits studying this recommend 3x/week to replete with soak times of at least 20 minutes. I notice the 'magnesium effect' (utter calmness) hitting me around the 20 - 30 minute mark. The other soak method is using a large porcelain on steel roasting pan with enough water to cover the upper ankles and about a pound of ES dissolved in it. I put it on an induction plate on the lowest setting to keep the water warm with a folded towel on the bottom of the inside of the pan to keep from burning the soles of my feet. If you're diabetic and can't feel your feet, do not use the coil...you could cook your feet. Not good.

The other method is to make 'mag oil' out of the ES, by dissolving it into just enough distilled water to hydrate all the crystals into solution...about 50/50 ES to water. This makes a great rub or spritzer when put into a spray bottle. Put the spray bottle in the shower and spray your arms and legs and rub that in for a great effect. If you have a migraine or can't sleep, just walk into the shower and spray your feet or shoulders and rub it in. It'll hit you in about a half hour or less and the migraine will go away (Mg relaxes the spasms in the arteries) and you will feel better and/or be able to drift asleep. Works amazing. Cramps..same thing + potassium.

Another benefit of ES is that it also contains a high ratio of sulfate, which CFS'ers are likely helped by if their transulfuration systems are compromised or they need additional free sulfur to make glutaTHIOne (thio in the name indicates sulfur) or meTHIOnine, etc...

The other type of transdermal mag I use is magnesium chloride. It is more expensive than ES (search 'food grade' 'refined nigari'), so I reserve it for mag oil (3:7 ratio with water) and used to use it in drinking water before I found the Mg bicarb. It is highly bioavailable and makes a better mag oil, IMO, than ES since it doesn't leave a residue when it dries. It does sting sensitive areas (use your imagination) and some sensitive people, because of the chloride and the fact that the stability constant of the molecule is zero. Which means it almost immediately disassociates into elemental Mg and elemental Cl ions upon entering the body. Both of these are critical essential elements to human biochemistry.

Together with your injections, these tips should hopefully help you get your magnesium levels into a helpful and healthy range. Once the repletion begins taking hold you will see the serum levels increase, but until then do not be alarmed if drifts around in a range unless it is alarmingly low. In that case ask for (rather insist upon) IV magnesium.

I'm having IM injections, I have just managed to speak to Dr, he thinks probably as my diet is very carbohydrate based this can effect magnesium level,.

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Rubbish! I had the same problem years ago and was told the same story. I stopped any supplementation, got on the methylation protocol and levels improved (and of course changed doctor). I did not change my diet which is based around carbs as I need those for energy. I frankly can't understand the low carbs story...
I'm not sure, but in my case it must have been a problem linked to issues with methylation. It's the only explanation I've got.

Randy,
I just discovered nigari (used in tofu making). My Mag oil has been costing $40 per bottle! I've started making my own.
The nigari I got is from the same sea as my expensive oil. As far as I can tell it's the same process, then dried into flakes.

I like the sound of your Mg sulfate soak with the induction plate warmer!

Randy,
I just discovered nigari (used in tofu making). My Mag oil has been costing $40 per bottle! I've started making my own.
The nigari I got is from the same sea as my expensive oil. As far as I can tell it's the same process, then dried into flakes.

I like the sound of your Mg sulfate soak with the induction plate warmer!

Great post - thanks!
Anne.

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Thanks Anne,

The refined nigari is MUCH cheaper than the commercial mag oil hawked on the web and elsewhere...and is exactly the same thing. I got 50# for $75...I wind up using it very freely and giving it away to family and friends who love it. Compared to retail I might get only a single gallon for that price...ridiculous.

The induction coil/roaster pan Jethro foot soaker method works amazing and came about out of frustration with a particularly crappy brand of 'heated' foot spas sold at big box stores. ConAir = ConJob. They simply wouldn't stay warm...within just a few minutes after putting in my own hot water, it'd be cold...nothing like sitting there with your feet in cold water to make you feel stupid and uncharitable toward the company making the false promises.

Anyway, the coil was $45 on sale and the roaster was $20 for two that nest and double as lids for the other one. Needless to say, both items are totally useful for their intended purposes whenever the need arises...but the need is almost always for soaker duty, at which they excel. The towel in the bottom evolved out of necessity since the induction unit turns the steel roaster into the 'burner'...aptly named. If you've ever gotten MgCl on anything stainless you'll know why I chose to use porcelain on steel...still magnetic, so it'll work with the induction unit, but not ruined by contact with the MgCl. Epsom Salts doesn't seem to attack steel the way MgCl does, so it must be the chloride.

The real gem is the Mg bicarb water though. Make a few gallons of that and you'll be hooked. Tastes good, works better. Amazing stuff.

I don't quite understand these mineral/amino acid chelates. Does taking taurine separately do anything or does it have to be Magnesium Taurinate?

Also, I've read that minerals are better absorbed on an empty stomach. Has anyone had success with that?

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Hi Lotus,

Have you heard about the relatively new Magnesium product which is available at Dr. Carolyn Dean search google for her web sight. It is called ReMag and is 100% absorbed, no diarea. I am useing is now and it is wonderful. Check it out.